The Luton Hat trade

The hat trade today is only a tiny part of a once huge world-wide industry. Everyone use to wear hats especially the men. Even in my youth it was rare to see a bare head. I remember seeing pictures of London in the 1930’s where thousands of people were rushing here there and everywhere and nearly every head had a hat on it.

Hat making was big business and for some reason Luton in England was at its centre.

The hat making industry may have started as early as 1610 in the Luton area and over the next 400 years became synonymous with the town. By 1680 thousands of people in the Luton area were being employed making hats. The height was the late 19^th century and the trade dominated Luton.

No one is exactly sure why the hat industry blossomed in Luton north of London. There are a few fanciful tales and legends but precious few facts. One legend tells that Mary Queen of Scots son, King James, brought the trade with him when he claimed the crown of England after Queen Elizabeth’s demise without an heir.

It is a far-fetched thought but there must have been a reason for Luton to be the centre of the hat-trade besides it closeness to London and abundance of materials.

What we do know is when expertise in a field was learnt and travel was difficult, that expertise stayed in an area. Much like the Cycle industry in Coventry or the Needle industry in Redditch. Hatton Gardens is still a diamond centre and Brick Lane where some of my French Huguenot family came to in 1685 is still one of the best places to buy silk over three centuries later.

Today moving of equipment and people is so easy that these specialized industries are now spread over the whole world. Some of the remaining hat businesses in Luton simply import ready-made hats form the Far East where labour is still inexpensive.

Hats are still produced in the town today though on a much diminished scale to its glory
days.

Luton Tales

Now here comes the interesting bit. Short stories from Luton.

Linda Kilpatrick was a hat maker towards
the end of Luton’s domination of the hat trade in the 1960's. In her own words you can travel back
with her to the Luton Hat Trade as it really was.

The Hat Trade in Luton 1962-1965

By Linda Kilpatrick- nee Greenwood

Linda now resides near Houston Texas, USA.  She is a widow, who was married thirty-four years and has one daughter.

This is her story.

In June 1962 I turned fifteen years old and two weeks later my school life ended.  Leaving school at fifteen was quite normal at that time in British
history as only the most fortunate stayed on at school until age sixteen and
went on for further education studies.  I was the forth down of eight children
and it was my turn to get a job and contribute to the family income.  

There were tons of hat factories in Luton in the 1960’s but most are gone now. My sister worked in the hat trade before her marriage and then for seven years did the trimming from home when her son was small.

I left home the Monday morning after my school life ended and walked along the back roads of Luton, Bedfordshire and stopped at every hat factory along Guildford Street. Guildford street has since been ripped down for big parking buildings as Luton is now a University
town and everything has changed.

For measuring the internal hat size

Chance or fate took me through the doors of a company named J. Collett who had premises
in Luton and a showroom in London. I have no clue if it was a family business and it’s as if every trace of them has since disappeared.

After I applied at the office I was taken up to the third floor where many odd looking sewing machines filled a room with mostly ladies and girls working on them.  Small frosted paned windows lined one wall which was at the front of the building. 

I was told to sit down in front of a flat bed machine and was handed a piece of woollen felt.
I was then told to sew in circles, which I later found out was my 'aptitude test'.  I obviously passed the test as I was then passed to a man (the foreman of that section) at the end of
a line of odd looking machines and was given a vacant machine next to him to start my training.

The machine I began my training on was similar to the Wilcox and Gibbs and I started learning how to put Petersham (Grosgrain in America) sizing bands inside ladies woollen felt hats.   While doing this I also added the Jacoll label.

Although the machine worked in chain stitch and a mistake was easily unravelled, I was told it was important not to make continuous mistakes as the needle
marks would compromise the hat. 

Although it was summer time, all the work done during that time was on winter hats ready for the new season. 

In winter we switched to summer hats.  On the machine shop floor there were several foremen or forelady's and each section had
someone in command.  I was moved around the entire floor during my four years working at this factory and was also used as a 'runner'
to run various errands on other floors. 

All work was paid by the piece and with piece-work you have to be quick to
earn a living. Some girls were slow and some fast.

The Hat Factory consisted of four floors in total and each floor was set up specifically for every part of the hat making process.  The hat making started from the top floor where
it was set up for blocking and cutting.

I will always remember the pleasant family men who worked up there embroiled in constant hot steam and the smells of wet woollen felt.  They always greeted me with smiles and answered any questions I had from my foreman or handed me what I had been sent up
there to get.

I can see now why steam blocking was done on the top floor as constant steam would have made all walls and ceilings soaking wet.  After blocking was finished the cutting of the extra felt around the brim edges was also done on this floor. 

The Heinrick Grossman Dresdenia B hat machine circa 1900

Men were surrounded by piled up woollen felted hat mounds around their cutting machines and the floor all around them was coated with circle strips of woollen felt.  I'm sure they stopped at times to clear a path.  I would run the back stairs from the machine floor up to this floor many times during any day as the elevator was always full of large carts on
wheels full of hats in various stages.

Bulasky hat machine circa 1890

The next floor down was the sewing machining floor and there were always carts full of hats waiting in line to be delivered to each machine section.  Paper tickets hung off the sides of the carts with specific orders and instructions.  Each of us would go to a cart in line and pick up a stack of hats and return to our machine and put the sizing bands in, or other jobs entailed in this stage. 

In summer I worked in the 'box' machine section, where a line of sewing machines that
looked like box shapes were set up around long industrial tables where they were bolted down. 

Bundles of coloured straw, sat in the large push
carts and we were handed notes which were our orders.

I am happy to say that I was extremely good at the job of making straw hats and very quick which didn't always win me good points from my co-workers. 

A wood block in the shape of a crown and brim sat
at my left side and I would start with whatever coloured straw I had orders for.
These blocks came in various head sizes. 

I threaded the start of a bundle of straw into the threader of
the machine, curved the start of the hat straw into tiny neat circle and then begin chain stitching while working the straw into the shape of the block.
When the crown looked close to the size of the
block I removed it from the machine to check my sizing.  Fortunately I had a great aptitude for guessing size and was rarely wrong.  This was important as straw plaiting could
not be undone and redone without damage. 

Once I knew it was right, I placed it back on the machine until the brim looked complete, then tried it on the block again.  Then a quick last finish on the machine to curve the final edge to round out the brim and I placed in on the stack of finished hats beside me.  When my orders were complete I restacked them into another cart.

When hats left our floor they made it down to the second floor, which had been set up for trimming and packing.  I often ran down to this floor to either pick up or take a hat back to the machine floor.  Tables sat in rows with girls and ladies sitting all around, trimming hats by hand.  Trims were never glued on or machine sewn.  All flowers and other shapes were hand made by these ladies.  Please note.

Trimming was also done as home industry by young mothers and those who chose or could not go out to work.  When finished and inspected, hats would be packed for shipping with tissue paper inside a nice hat box.   

The ground floor where you entered the building had the showroom and offices.  Buyers made frequent trips to the showroom to see
the latest collection and then tours of the factory were often conducted. 

Groups of buyers were brought to each floor by Mr. Sanders who
was the director of the company. 

I left this industry at age nineteen when I joined Vauxhall Motors
as a sewing machinist. The job entailed sewing car seats, which
was boring but paid far more money.

Well, what a great story of a time now gone forever, Many thanks Linda and I do hope you track down some of your workmates.

Louisa's Story

Louisa Price was just 20 when the hat making firm she was working in was changed to uniforms for the Second World War. Many of the factories in Luton carried on making hats but for the armed forces instead of civvie street.

Because Louisa passed a test which she assumed was some sort of IQ test she was moved to a factory set up to manufacture ball bearings for military vehicles, possibly part of the Vauxhall factory.

Here she lined up with all the other girls and was inspected. Louisa had dark eyes, something which was needed for inspecting the finished ball bearings. Dark eyes were supposed to be stronger!

After basic training Louisa had her own room with the sides set up with various containers of liquid to clean and stain the ball bearings before microscopic examination. Her teachers constantly impressed on her the importance of ball bearings in the war effort.

Every machine, every tank, airplane, every car, train and truck ran on ball bearings. They were absolutely vital. If one ball bearing failed so did the machine. If Louisa did not do her job properly Spitfires would fall from the sky and the whole war effort would grind to a halt! She was petrified and made sure she learnt her job perfectly.

After training Louisa started work on her fist Monday in her new white coat and long acid proof gloves. her first job of the day was to walk around the factory with a wire shopping basket and collect sample bearings from all the machines making them. Then back to her lab and down to business. The ball bearings needed to be de-greased and were dipped in a liquid. Then they were stained with acid and and other chemicals until finally Louisa could get each bearing under the microscope and examine it.

Word got around the factory that the new girl had started in the testing lab and two Irishmen turned up with containers for cleaning fluid. A while later two more smiling Irishmen turned up for more cleaning fluid, this time with a flask and a saucepan making some poor excuse about the containers. Louisa was polite and chatted to them as she carried on working. This carried on at regular intervals throughout the morning.

By the afternoon Louisa was running low on cleaning fluid and went to her foreman to ask where the supplies were kept. he was astounded. She had enough cleaning fluid for a month not a day. Louisa explained that although she had used some of the fluid most of it was taken by friendly Irishmen in all sorts of containers for important work around the plant.

The foreman grunted something unrepeatable and Louisa and her boss set off to find out what had been happening to her supplies. As they walked around looking for the culprits they heard laughing coming from inside one of the sheds and went to investigate. They found a dozen Irishmen drunk as skunks sipping the fluid and singing songs. They all cheered Louisa as she entered and raised their drinking utensils that were an assortment of mugs, cups and jam jars.

No one had told Louisa that the cleaning fluid was pure alcohol. Needles to say she learnt her lesson and never fell for the same old blarney by the Irish again. After the war she switched back to hat making as if she had never been away.

Great story don't you just love them, real life, real humour in the midst of adversity. Thank you Louisa.

Louisa is currently 92 and living in Bexhill-On-Sea. She has the habit of patting my face when I repair her machine as if I have been a good little boy. I just smile, her stories are worth it.

Well that's it for this page.

If anyone has any old pictures of Luton factories or more stories please do mail me,